George Danellis: Climate change

The whole world is watching the United Nations in Copenhagen as world leaders build the framework for an international treaty to address climate change. The Obama administration must take a firm stand in moving climate negotiations forward when he attends the talks later this week.

The United States has shown that it wants to address climate change by electing a president who is deeply committed to the same goal. President Barack Obama has shown he wants to meet that goal by placing highly knowledgeable and equally committed individuals in his administration. He has called for a significant agreement that will begin to immediately fight the ravages of climate change. Now he can prove to us and the rest of the world that he understands how dire the consequences of inaction will be.

The world will follow America’s lead on this issue; we must seize the opportunity of passing effective, bold new federal policy if we want to finally solve the problem of climate change, drive innovation that Americans are known for, and create millions of good-paying, clean-energy jobs in the process.

If America leads, the rest of the world will follow, and we will have a good chance of adequately tackling the issue of climate change. But President Obama must act boldly.

Comments

The climate change experts agree that even if the most radical climate change measures were taken by all countries the result would be a whopping 0.5 to 1.25 degree C. benefit by 2050 -- not enough to save even one polar bear. That benefit would be at the cost of the standard of living in the developed world (read America). Right now, the poor countries are demanding the US and Europe adopt economy killing policies and that they not change their ways. Even more arrogantly, they want the US to pay their bills using money we borrow from China. The result would bring electricity to 400 million people in India that currently do not have electricity. That power would be generated by coal fired CO2 belching generators. I'm not willing to give up our way of life for a runious altrustic self-destruction -- are you?

If you believe in wealth redistribution you are in a vast minority in our country. Obama and his cohort of idealogues are driving us in that direction based on a mis-guided need to "pay for our illgotten wealth". And don't hold your breath, the US senate, as left wing as they are, is not dumb enough to take us down that horid road.

And if you believe the Chinese will "follow our lead" I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

You are being too nice chuckmc,
In the wake of uncovered emails that show that the so called climate Scientists were fudging the data to hide the decline in temps over the last decade we should use this letter to wipe our butts.
The Polar Bear population has multiplied 10 fold in the last decade and Algoracle has been lying his pants off the last few days about the Polar ice caps and called out on it by one of the AGW scientist he wrongly quoted.
This spread the wealth scheme which Obama has started must end before we have no USA left to save from the Progressive Marxists as the price tag for Cap and Tax is estimated at 110 trillion dollars of our money.
Oh, and if I lived in Wisconsin and had kids in school I would take my family and move to save them from the SEIU indoctrination that the Governor of that state just signed into law.
And also, Obama is now threatening Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska with the closure of the USA's most strategic AF base, Offut, if he does not vote for the health care bill.
We are being led down the garden path to a new civil war or a 3rd WW.
Don't get me started about Iran and the Obama appeasement factor that has done nothing, according to Hillary Clinton, to end that growing nuclear threat.
I think if we really want to affect AGW we should incarcerate Tiger Woods, that would reduce friction and heat that is certainly adding to the problem don,t you agree Mr. Danellis?

The Chinese are building 2 coal fired power plants PER WEEK!
We are building none.
We have not built an oil refinery in America in 20+ years. God knows how long since we built a nuclear power plant.
France uses way more nuclear power than we do.
It doesn't seem like the world is following our lead at all. Why? THEY are not totally MAD.

TWO coal fired plants/ week George... 2/wk! Do you suppose they will idle those new coal plants if we all ask them really nice? Get Real.

Now tell me George, What happend to "global warming"? Couldn't prove that one anymore so you guys switched to "climate change"? The climate has always changed. Why do we need to stop it from changing now? How do you know it's not changing for the better?

This climate crisis increasingly appears to be a power grab and little else.

The influence of Left (or the Right) on our Senate is puny next to the power there of Big Industry. Witness the handouts the "Left" Senate gave to Big Insurance before Lieberman even got started. Witness the TARP do-as-you-please-with-our-money authored by the previous "Right" administration.

Chuck,
I'll agree with every fact offered in your entire 2nd paragraph. And I wouldn't agree with the terms sought by the 3rd world either. But I fully disagree with your ethic.

Do I read you correctly that you have no responsibility for the CO2 and other pollution that you would leave the next 3 generations of Americans? You'll keep your much higher standard of living and pay no additional (carbon acknowledging) price for it because... our kids are already screwed anyway?

lewi, the Tarp somehow worked and now the 230 some billion dollars that has come back is going to be spread around by Obama as a so called second stimulus, or slush fund for bribing like he did with Mary Landreau and our 300 million for her vote.
Come on lewi don't let them continue to fool you.
And the big industry is not immune either I agree, Obama once voted against stopping the import of generic drugs from Canada and holy cow what do you know? he now has a deal with big PHARMA and is against the import of cheaper generic drugs from Canada.
I think he will do anything to satisfy his thirst for continuing power and his "fundamental change" of the USA to a Marxist state.

The Chinese are building 10 nuclear power plants per year and have 200 on the drawing board. Nuke plants provide great jobs in the construction and equally great jobs during the operational phase.

If we were really serious about climate change and energy, we would be building 50 nuclear power plants in this country to stop sending our money to the Middle East and to create a tsunamai of jobs.

The electrical grid would be rebuilt by the clever distribution and siting of the plants.

We are asleep at the switch and held hostage to the limited vision of this administration which thinks it can create jobs by increasing the pay of community organizers.

BTW, the Arabs at the GCC (Gulf Cooperative Council) announced the creation of a pan-Arab currency to be modeled on the Euro thereby severing the dollar from the oil industry. The Arabs think they can make the oil business conduct its finances in this currency. So much for the new administration's bowing and scraping to Saudi Arabia.

Their timing indicates they think the US is weak and cannot protect its own interests or its dollar. This is what bowing and scraping gets you.

We have protected Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, to just mention two, from the unbridled aggression of its neighbors and this is what you get. This is what happens when you have a huge trade imbalance and why we must have energy independence.

Of course, everybody like President Obama a whole lot cause they can ignore him with impunity. Nobody respects weakness.

Uh oh, lewi posted while I was posting and he says we are leaving three generations of kids with CO2 for our standard of living. You better not be using electricity or driving a car lewi or you could be considered a hypocrite. It is a flawed conspiracy for the true desires of taking down this nation and sending our wealth to 3rd world countries so they can build palaces and cities on our dime.
We are not going to sit idly by lewi while you and the progressives ruin this free country.
We are rising lewi, take note of the Tea Party and the 9/12ers, we are growing.

Off the Santa Barbara coast sit production platforms which were originally configured for directional drilling at almost every point of the compass in 6 degree increments thereby providing for 60 directional wells. Most have only 24 such wells drilled.

The lifting and piping infrastructure is in place.

Drill baby drill --- the balance of these wells!

In Alaska, we have enormous resources of natural gas which is not transportable to the lower 48 --- well, until Saracudda got a deal done with oil companies to build the largest pipeline ever through Canada.

This is an example of two projects which should be undertaken immediately.

Together with the development of 50 nuclear power plants --- stymied by Sen Reid's opposition to opening Yucca Flats disposal facility in his native Nevada --- this would be a huge step forward.

Instead, we are funding pork, bailing out ungrateful banks and allowing Wall Street to pay unconsciounable bonuses. Of course, President Obama is scolding everybody in public but where it counts he is Wall Street's b!tch!

As one of the believers in "peak oil", I know that it is sine qua non we have a real plan for energy independence. Ultimately that means a shift away from crude oil and coal as our primary energy source -- especially since a lot of the countries who supply us with crude are not so nice.

If the government would just get off the backs of the natural gas industry, we could use this relatively clean, domestically produced fuel to transition into a renewable era. And one real bonus to this domestic energy source is a very large number of high paying jobs for Americans (I hope the Pilot publishes my letter Sunday on this subject.) I know this sounds strange comming from a conservative, but the reality is that there is no crude oil comming to earth from outter space and what we have will eventually be exhausted and especially at the rate of increase of usage by the US and the developing nations.

Natural gas and nuclear must be exploited beginning right now while we build wind, hydro and solar facilities over the next 12 to 15 years. (Yeah, hydro, people are actually more important that those one inch long minnows.)

But here is the current political reality. Gov. Ritter is fighting natural gas drilling along with Salazar (both of them) and Udall -- all in the misguided name of the environment. (I have actually been responsible for gas well drilling and production and it is very clean.) The hero of the left, Senator Ted Kennedy, put a full stop to a wind farm that threatened his ocean front view and the rest of the "progressives" have succeeded in halting expansion of Gulf of Mexico natural gas drilling. How in the world does that make any sense?

Oh, and before you blog me, the reason there is currently a lot of acrage not being drilled in the Gulf is because that acrage has no natural gas. Believe me if there were gas in the areas the industry now has under lease they would be drilling on it. Gas industry data shows, however, that much of the area the congress has put off limits has copious production potential.

lewi, my little plan shown above would first decrease the CO2 emissions then ultimately reduce them very, very significantly. (I think you and I might just get to the same end but for very different reasons.) But best of all, I don't have to become a bleary eyed Copenhagen street thug to make it happen.

What you say makes perfect sense for a number of reasons but most importantly because if nothing else natural gas circulates the money domestically. It is clear we have no long term friends in the Middle East and we are nuts to finance our enemies.

The announcement today of a plan to create a pan-Arab currency is proof positive of where their and our interests lie.

The ability to access N Slope natural gas is important.'

The advent of nuclear can provide almost all the power for the entire US much as it does for France. France is, of course, much smaller than the US.

I doubt that wind or solar will ever be anything more than a novelty though I think solar is more promising in the American south where its generation can be complementary to peak electrical demand.

Great stuff chuckmc, I know I have heard this somewhere before, let me think a minute.
Oh yea, Sarah Palin all last year during the campaign.
What she did after she was elected to the Governorship is open the books to the public.
All Oil and Gas company offers were available by every Alaskan to read and the interests of the individual in the State were preserved and the environmental concerns were in the forefront.
Oh what could have been.
So we sit here and wait to see how bad Obama sells us out in Copenhagen.

In Sarah's own words in response to Arnold from Caleefornia:
"Why is Governor Schwarzenegger pushing for the same sorts of policies in Copenhagen that have helped drive his state into record deficits and unemployment? Perhaps he will recall that I live in our nation’s only Arctic state and that I was among the first governors to create a sub-cabinet to deal specifically with climate change. While I and all Alaskans witness the impacts of changes in weather patterns firsthand, I have repeatedly said that we can’t primarily blame man’s activities for those changes. And while I did look for practical responses to those changes, what I didn’t do was hamstring Alaska’s job creators with burdensome regulations so that I could act “greener than thou” when talking to reporters."

Great stuff, guys. I think that reasonable ideas as seeuski and JLM have proffered will make America much stronger both strategically and economically if the politicians will just get out of the way. And, not to press the issue lewi, all of these ideas from apparently conservative thinkers would actually bring CO2 emissions down by orders of magnitude and without taxes and dramatically higher energy costs to all Americans as Obama is driving toward.

I ran a refinery in central Alaska several years ago and saw first hand the benefit of reasonably priced energy to the people who lived there as well as the creation of many high-paying jobs. We were closely monitored by govt. agencies, as was understandable, and were squeeky clean environmentally. We were all mistified, however, by government blockage of construction of a natural gas pipeline. Just think how much better off we would be now if that energy were flowing now.